Worship
for the Lord’s Day
Sept 6,
2020
Some announcements before
we begin this day’s worship, previous announcements are below the current ones:
·
An
invitation from Rev. Judi Slater, pastor at First, Duquesne;
I would like to invite
you and members of your churches to a Zoom class being planned by The First
Presbyterian of Duquesne on Racial Equity.
"Imagine Equity
Series on Racial Justice"
We will be looking at
the situation of racial inequity in our society and how we can join in God's
kingdom work of combating the sin of racism.
Tuesdays, September 8,
15, 22, 29 at 7:00-8:30pm via Zoom
Each session will
include an educational element, testimonies, and suggested actions.
You can sign up for
this series by emailing me at judislater@gmail.com.
·
I’ll
be sending out a letter to all members and friends of Bethesda and Olivet on
Tuesday with updates on the goings and comings of our members that you might not
have heard about and be interested in.
These are the kinds of things that we’d normally hear about on Sunday
mornings at church. And some prayer
requests. I don’t publish those here, as
this is a public platform. If you have
anything you’d like the membership to know, you can email me revwaltp@gmail.com today or
tomorrow and I’ll include it.
·
Last
new announcement; I’ll be taking some vacations days beginning on Wednesday,
Sept 9 through Sept 16. Just doing some
day trips here and there, getting out and clearing the mind and soul. Next week’s worship service and sermon have
already been done and will be posted on Sunday, Sept. 13. In addition, I’m working on doing the daily
meditations for those days ahead of time and will either post them each morning
or will post all of them at once beforehand.
Previous Announcements:
·
The
Community Support for Education Program at Bethesda had to be canceled. Although I think it was a good program, we
just didn’t have enough time to garner the volunteer support we needed to make
it happen. We had 32 requests for registrations
from parents, but by Friday we only had 7 students registered, although I was
expecting more over this weekend and even into this week. The biggest hurdle was coming up with enough
volunteers. 8 people contacted me with
an interest in volunteering, but none of them actually committed to helping. I knew it would be a stretch from the
beginning, as I knew that most of our own members wouldn’t be able to
volunteer, but also fully believed that it was the right thing to try and do
for our community and was hoping for more community support. I’ve always been a pastor that emphasizes the
aspect of DOING ministry, not just talking about it. The last few months with nothing substantial
to actually do, I was (perhaps) a little too ALL-IN for this program to come to
fruition. So, in honesty, I’m a bit sad.
·
We
were also beginning to make some plans to start parking lot worship services in
the month of Sept. at the Bethesda Church.
The parking lot is not very large, but large enough to hold about 12-15
cars, backed in, with space in the center for me to preach and lead worship. In 2019, PennDot approached us about bridge
work that needed to be done just beyond our lot on 3rd Avenue and
asked if they could use our parking lot to stage their equipment at the far end
of the lot and work on the bridge. They
offered us some financial compensation for doing so. For whatever reason, the work was delayed for
nearly a year and has just now begun, which poses an additional hurdle to host
worship services in the parking lot.
·
We
are planning on the possibility of opening up both congregations on Oct 4 for
our first in-person, corporately-gathered worship service at our regular times
of 9:45am at Olivet and 11:15am at Bethesda.
Be patient. We will be together in worship again, soon! Until then, let’s begin:
Opening Prayer
Lord, we come this day to worship and thank You for the many
ways You guide our lives. We ask that
our hearts, our ears, and our spirits may be open to Your healing words of
love. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. AMEN.
Hymn Praise to the Lord, the
Almighty
Prayer of Confession
Merciful Lord, we like to think that we do everything well. We pat ourselves on the back when we act with
love and mercy toward others, complimenting ourselves in self-righteousness. But You know us better. You know our faults
and our failings. You know when we
falsely proclaim that we are truly living as You would have us live. Teach us again about Your forgiving and
healing love. Show us ways of merciful
living that we may extend the love and mercy You have given us to others. Forgive us, we pray. For we ask these things in Jesus’ Name. AMEN.
Words of Assurance
Rejoice! You are loved
by God who judges your failures and heals your hearts and spirits. In Jesus’ Name, we all are forgiven and healed.
AMEN.
Affirmation of Faith –
The Apostles’ Creed
I believe in God the
Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His only Son
our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost; born of the Virgin Mary;
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He descended
into hell; the third day He rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall
come to judge the quick and the dead. I
believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints;
the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life
everlasting. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer:
(Continued prayers for
all those affected by the Coronavirus, for our schools, for our national
leaders.)
Lord of Light, in the midst of darkness and fear, You call us
to be a community of peace, love and hope. You remind us of the blessings we have and the
opportunities to share those blessings with others. We praise and thank You for all these things
and for Your constant presence with us. Today,
as a community seeking peace and healing, we offer the names of loved ones who
are struggling with illness, with loss, with feelings of alienation and fear. Although others can’t hear today as we pray,
we name them……..
Surround them with Your grace that they may seek Your healing
and hope in their lives.
As we lift up our concerns, although far from one another, we
also offer prayers of love and rejoicing. Today, I give thanks for…..
Lord, we thank You for Your sustaining love for us. We are confident in Your abiding presence with
us. Help us to be faithful to You in all
times and in all places. Give us the
grace to accept the forgiveness You have offered to each of us. We
ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior who taught us to pray saying; Our
Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth
as it is in heaven. Give us this day our
daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we
forgive our debtors. And lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. AMEN.
Scripture Readings
Old Testament: Psalm 149
1Praise
the Lord!
Sing to the Lord a
new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
2Let
Israel be glad in its Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King.
3Let
them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre.
4For
the Lord takes
pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory.
5Let the
faithful exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their couches.
6Let the
high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands,
7to
execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples,
8to bind
their kings with fetters and their nobles with chains of iron,
9to
execute on them the judgment decreed. This is glory for all his faithful ones.
Praise the Lord!
New Testament: Romans 13:8-14
8Owe no one anything, except to
love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9The
commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall
not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in
this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10Love
does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.
11Besides this, you know what
time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation
is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12the
night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness
and put on the armor of light; 13let us
live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in
debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14Instead,
put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify
its desires.
Anthem – Love God, Love One Another This is an old Gaither Standard
Sermon – Just like the hymns, you can click on the
sermon title to hear/watch a video of today’s sermon via YouTube. I recorded today’s sermon in the sanctuary at
Bethesda. The quality of the sound is
not as great, but wondered if it might give us a better sense of being “at
church”.
(based
on Romans 13:8-14)
What does love mean? Think about it for a moment…what does that
word actually mean to you? Regardless of
the 171,476 words in the Oxford English Dictionary that are currently in use
today, there is still a limit to our language.
I love mashed potatoes. I love my
friends. I love my family. I love watching movies. I love cooking and traveling and reading. I love going to church and worshipping
God. I love being at the beach or on a
lake or in the mountains. I love driving
a car. I love the colors green and
red. I love my pets. The meaning of the word love in all of those
sentences is so very different. In
English we have one word for love, but in Greek, there are four, phileo,
storge, eros, and agape.
Only two of them are used that often in scripture, phileo and agape,
but all four of them mean very different things.
The
first one phileo is the type of love that we have for friends. It is the mutual affection that grows between
two people that have a common bond.
Aristotle would say that this type of love requires reciprocity – a give
and take in a relationship where each mutually benefits from the bond that is
created. This type of love just happens
naturally as those common bonds between people are shared.
The
second one storge is the type of love that we share between family
members. This love is similar to phileo
love but is reserved for the more intimate relationship that develops between
parent and child or between siblings.
The
third word for love in Greek is eros.
This word is the kind of love that is shared between lovers. It is a the romantic or passionate form of
love. It’s often the kind of love that
can grow out of a phileo relationship between two people. Or it can be sparked from the moment two
people lay eyes on one another.
The
last word for love in Greek is agape and this type of love is referred to as the highest form of love. It is the love that God has for us and that
we ought to have for our Creator. Years
ago the definition for agape love would have included charity in its
definition, but unfortunately the word charity has come to only mean giving
away money or things to someone in need.
But the original concept of charity and therefore this agape love
is that is it unconcerned with the self and only concerned with the greatest
good for the other. Agape love is
not born just out of emotions, feelings, familiarity, or attraction, but
instead from the will as a choice. It
requires faithfulness, commitment, and sacrifice without expecting anything in
return. So, the biggest difference
between agape love and all the other words for love is that there is no
expectation for reciprocity.
As we
read this passage from Romans, the word for love used in this is agape, meaning
that we are commanded to love others without expecting anything in return. It requires faithfulness to our
neighbor. It requires commitment and
sometimes even sacrifice for the well-being of others.
It is
also the only type of love that can be commanded of us. All the other forms of love either grow
naturally because of the bonds that are shared such as friendships that develop
such as phileo love or eros love if they develop into a romantic
type of relationship. Or they exist due
to family relationships or bonds, not necessary of our own choosing such as storge
love. One might point out that the Ten
Commandments say that we are commanded to love our Father and Mother. But this is incorrect, we are commanded to
honor our Fathers and Mothers. The only
type of love that can be commanded is agape love.
In our
reading today from Romans, the word for love used is agape, which tells
us that, as Christians, we are therefore commanded to show empathy and
lovingkindness to everyone. We are
commanded to show the kind of love that God has for us to our neighbor.
Origen
wrote that “love is the one obligation that fulfills all other
obligations.” And that’s exactly what
the author of Romans is saying here. Agape
love for everyone is the fulfilling of the law.
You can’t be doing anything wrong if you are fulfilling this one
commandment.
If you
think loving one another is an easy commandment, think again. The biggest difficulty with this is that we
are far to self-focused and self-absorbed to sacrificially care for all others. We have limits. We can only go so far. We can only love so much.
There’s
another big difference between agape love and all other forms of
love. As I already mentioned the other
forms expect something in return, they are reciprocal in relationship; I get
something out of it, you get something out of it. Agape love is also a shared love, but
what happens with agape love is that it grows exponentially. It’s not just between two people, it grows
between lots of people as more and more people share that kind of love.
Did
you ever notice that during Christ’s ministry on earth, he never did anything
alone? The only thing he did alone was
to go off to a deserted place or a garden to pray. Everything else he did was with a group of
others. He personified agape love
by bringing people together to learn, to work, to do miracles, to teach, to
care for others. And if we go through
the scriptures we can see just how that agape love grew. First, it was just the twelve that Jesus
called, then it included some others – an outer circle, if you will; wives and
mothers, people like Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Then in Acts, as the Christian movement grew,
it included those that they added to their number everyday, into the
thousands.
Today,
as Christianity has spread throughout the world, it has included billions of
people since Christ’s death. It is
because of that sacrificial agape love.
We
need to agape one another, as Christ has agape’d (not really a Greek one)
us. One of the things that I have always
loved about smaller membership churches.
We have the quirky Uncle, we have the wayward cousin, we have the Mary’s
and the Martha’s, the mother/daughter disputes, we have the prodigal son and
the older son who has been here forever feeling neglected, we have the black
sheep of the family and we have the Joseph’s, the drama queens, who need center
attention. I don’t care if you
identified with any of those characters or thought of names for those
characters or think that none of them exist here. What matters is that, regardless, we love one
another. We know how to accept one
another with all of our character flaws and our character strengths. That is the power of agape love,
because there are lots of those kinds of people out in the world. And the more we share agape love, the more
all of those characters feel included, cared for, loved themselves. Afterall, We ARE the body of Christ. Our agape love for all of our
neighbors is the greatest gift we can give to the church and to the world,
right now.
There’s
this thing that happens with agape love.
When it you are the receiver of it, you feel empowered, strengthen,
changed to become a better human being.
When you are the giver of agape love, you have more love to give, you
also are strengthened and empowered and you become a better human being. Josh Groban wrote a song called You Raise Me
Up.
When I
am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When
troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then,
I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until
you come and sit awhile with me.
You
raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You
raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am
strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You
raise me up… To more than I can be.
There
is no life – no life without its hunger;
Each
restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But
when you come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes,
I think I glimpse eternity.
You
raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You
raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am
strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You
raise me up… To more than I can be.
This
song always leaves me breathless and touches my heart and soul. And they are exactly the words that fill
today’s message with hope for tomorrow.
It is in loving one another that we are made stronger, whole, and a new
creation. That kind of love for one
another allows us to stand on mountains, walk on stormy seas, filled with
wonder and glimpse eternity.
Benediction
The peace of Jesus Christ has been poured out to you. Now go into the world bringing hope,
forgiveness, and peace to others. God’s
peace is with you always. AMEN.
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